Curtis G Pew wrote: <begin extract> I think one of the folks involved in Solaris zfs (not to be confused with OMVS zFS) calculated that the entropy generated by a full 128-bit address space would result in enough heat to boil all the oceans on earth. So I believe 128 bits is enough for a long time. </end extract>
and I am puzzled. Is this entropy the entropy of thermodynamics or information theory? The quantity having the dimensions J/K, Joules per Kelvin? In what sense is entropy ever 'generated'? Or is this perhaps a technically loose figurative, metaphorical way of talking about the heat generated by a "full" 256-bit address word memory, one physically containing 2^256 addressable units of 'real' storage. If so, what storage technology was envisaged in these calculations. Delay lines? Ferrite cores? CMOS? Hadrons in quantum-mechanical storage? Each of these technologies would have different power requirements. Moreover, while no one has yet constructed an instance of 'full' real 64-bit storage, this "failure" has not compromised the usefulness of AMODE(64) virtual storage. Is this statement indeed susceptible of any definite interpretation? Or is it, as I suspect, essentially frivolous rhetoric? John Gilmore, Ashland, MA 01721 - USA ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
